


shake hands with the devil (but i'm calling it a fist fight)

by AsperJasper



Series: Rumspringa Murderdock [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Gwen (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Law School, M/M, Rumspringa Matt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsperJasper/pseuds/AsperJasper
Summary: When his mom asked, Foggy said "quiet." His sister got told "fucking bizarre" and his brother "weirdly intimidating." If anybody in class asked, Foggy got weirdly protective and just said that Matt was a good roommate.But he was weird. In and out at random times, always coming back looking like he’d been in a dog fight on the way back. Always saying something weird and random and completely accurate that he had no business knowing. Tilting his head like he was listening to something nobody else could hear, and smiling in that weirdly creepy way of his, like he knew something nobody else did and was about to use it to his own advantage. It was obvious that Matt was smart. They had a couple of classes together and every time he started talking, everyone in the room listened, and he was right. When people were around, he was cocky and over the top and confident, and when people weren’t, he was stoic and quiet.Or, the au I affectionately call Rumspringa Murderdock
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Series: Rumspringa Murderdock [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207085
Comments: 26
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

They were drunk. And shirtless. Probably on their way to making out. That was often how Friday nights went when Foggy was unsuccessful in his attempts to get Matt to go to a party with him.

That was kind of how everything went. Foggy tried to convince Matt to do something normal, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and (recently) either way ended up with them hooking up.

Rule fucking one of having a roommate: don’t hook up with them. It’s stupid. Foggy knew it was stupid the first time when Matt started it oh-so-eloquently with a simple "I’m bored, you’re horny, wanna fuck?"

But like. Matt was kind of hot. No, not kind of. Matt was hot. Like, really hot. And it was true, Foggy was horny, and if Matt was bored and willing to hook up, and things weren’t even weird afterward, just back to the norm, well. Foggy was breaking rule fucking one all the time and it was pretty great.

The norm might have been pretty fucking weird, but hey. Life is life, and a weird friends-with-benefits situation with his weird roommate is hardly the worst it could get.

And don’t get him wrong, it was really fucking weird. He wasn’t even quite sure Matt would call him a friend. Matt was very…

Well, it depended on who asked. When his mom asked, Foggy said "quiet." His sister got told "fucking bizarre" and his brother "weirdly intimidating." If anybody in class asked, Foggy got weirdly protective and just said that Matt was a good roommate.

But he was weird. In and out at random times, always coming back looking like he’d been in a dog fight on the way back. Always saying something weird and random and completely accurate that he had no business knowing. Tilting his head like he was listening to something nobody else could hear, and smiling in that weirdly creepy way of his, like he knew something nobody else did and was about to use it to his own advantage. It was obvious that Matt was smart. They had a couple of classes together and every time he started talking, everyone in the room listened, and he was right. When people were around, he was cocky and over the top and confident, and when people weren’t, he was stoic and quiet.

When Candace actually met him for the first time, she said that he had the energy of somebody who would say "don’t you just want to go crazy?" Before killing somebody at a frat party. And, yeah. That kind of worked to describe him, actually.

But he was never an asshole to Foggy. He wasn’t always exactly _friendly_ but he wasn’t mean, either. He was…blunt. Didn’t mince words. Said what he meant.

It could be a lot to handle, sure, and Foggy braced himself every time Matt opened his mouth in class for this to be the time a professor finally had enough of his debate skills being used to derail class.

But like. He was hot. He was a solid roommate. And he wanted to hook up every once in a while. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

So they were drunk. Not like, smashed. But drunk. And shirtless.

Usually, clothes didn’t come off until they were already all over each other, and Foggy was way too distracted by everything Matt was doing to him to pay much attention to his body other than "muscles abs really fucking hot." It was hot out tonight, maybe that was why, Matt hated to have their window open and it wasn’t like their dorm had AC in any way, shape, or form. So it was hot and stuffy, and alcohol took away any kind of self-consciousness he had and so they were both shirtless on the floor, passing the bottle back and forth.

It was expensive shit, too, a big bottle of whiskey with a brand name Foggy only recognized as always being in the section of bottles behind a bar that he couldn’t even look at without feeling like he was wasting money, but Matt had produced it seemingly out of nowhere and they were drinking it and it was good and they were drunk.

Foggy knew Matt had some weird scars. Not that like, scars were weird in general or anything like that, just weird in the same way everything about Matt was weird. They seemed out of place. There were a lot of them, and most of them weren’t small, and Foggy had felt them all before, gotten glimpses of them when Matt changed or came in the room after a shower, but he’d never gotten to just look like this, and it was even more obvious how strange the scars were.

He’d never thought about it before. What was Matt getting up to that he had so many scars, all apparently neatly healed but all very visible, and all so big? It looked like he’d shown up to a knife club and let them use him as a test board.

Matt didn’t like to be touched, in general. Foggy knew it. He’d heard him snap at people who touched him without warning and seen him react like he was about to punch somebody who just didn’t listen when he said he didn’t need help. Every time Matt and Foggy touched, Matt was the one who initiated it.

Foggy never started it, physically, anyway. So he wasn’t really sure what possessed him to reach out and touch the scar closest to him. Matt tensed before Foggy even touched him, another one of his weird things that didn’t make much sense but he always knew before somebody touched him, but he didn’t try to stop Foggy.

The scar was long and thin, a neat little slice that disappeared into his waistband, and raised under Foggy’s fingers. Matt huffed out a tiny little breath that might have been a laugh or a sigh, and Foggy took it to mean that he was okay with Foggy touching.

He didn’t push Foggy away, anyway.

"What’s this from?" Foggy asked, tracing the scar all the way from Matt’s belt to where it ended just below his ribcage.

Matt was silent for a long, long moment. Foggy was sure he’d overstepped, sure Matt was about to pull away and sleep with his back to Foggy, that he’d made things weird and pushed too far into Matt’s very intensely protected personal bubble.

"A knife," Matt said.

"A knife?"

"That’s what I said."

"Oh." Foggy moved up, to a rougher-looking scar right below his sternum.

"I fell."

"Huh?"

"Landed on a fence."

"Oh."

This felt like a precious moment. Matt didn’t talk much about himself. Foggy had a really vague idea of how he’d grown up, knew he’d lived in Japan since he was a pretty young kid, and been part of some kind of special school. Or something. Matt didn’t exactly like to open up. At all. Foggy only knew he’d lived in Japan because he’d overheard him speaking Japanese and Matt had grudgingly told him so and had pieced the rest together from vague impressions. To have him answering Foggy’s questions, even before they were asked, that felt special. Like maybe Matt was finally learning to trust him, after the months they’d lived together.

Foggy traced his way up Matt’s left side, touching every scar gently, and Matt gave quiet, one or two-word explanations for all of them.

"Knife."

"Sword."

"Cat."

"Training accident."

None of them made any sense, really. Foggy was pretty sure he was either joking or lying through his teeth. He’d never heard Matt tell a joke, so he couldn’t really be sure.

He had twin scars right near his collarbones. Two diagonal stripes, white and raised like the ones Matt had labeled to be from knives. Foggy brushed his thumbs over both at once. Matt shuddered a little against him.

"Kyoketsu-shoge."

"Hmm?"

"Like…fancy knives on a chain. Pretty much."

"Ouch."

"You should see the other guy."

Now that was a joke. An admittedly stale, overused joke. Delivered very stiffly. In fact, it barely sounded like Matt was joking at all, but the very corner of his mouth was quirked up in a little smirk that looked a lot less mean than his smirks usually did, so Foggy was about…ninety-four percent sure it was a joke on purpose. It made him laugh, anyway, probably harder than he would have if he wasn’t drunk, but he laughed pretty hard.

Matt even looked like he almost smiled. Like, all the way.

Something about that expression on his face, like he was so close to smiling but also like he was scared to smile, like he still wasn’t sure he wanted to trust Foggy completely, made Foggy sad. He wanted Matt to smile.

He leaned forward and kissed the scar closest to him, the one on his left collarbone. Matt turned towards him.

They didn’t really do foreplay when they hooked up. That’s all it was, after all, a hookup. Typically, they went from their usual interactions to making out to hooking up. Pass go, collect two hundred dollars, add "hook up with somebody you’ve heard at least ten people fantasize out loud about" to your bucket list just to cross it off.

This felt different. New and fragile, and like if Foggy made one wrong move Matt would bolt like a kicked dog. But his head was tilted towards Foggy in that way he did when he was listening to something intently. He was as relaxed as he ever was, breathing slowly and smoothly, and when Foggy kissed his chest again, he just exhaled. So Foggy kept going. Followed this instinct he didn’t even really recognize as something he’d ever felt before, at least not towards Matt. He wanted to get Matt to smile, he wanted to see what Matt was like under the carefully maintained exterior he’d just barely started to let slip tonight.

They normally moved so fast, this slow-and-sweet business was completely foreign territory and Foggy wasn’t completely sure if he was loving it or absolutely terrified of what it meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to make this anything more than a hookup, and this sure felt like he was leading it in that direction.

But it somehow felt natural, too. He really was just following a gut feeling, and his gut feeling was that Matt had never been touched like this, and didn’t everyone deserve to be touched like everything about them was something to be wanted? Didn’t everyone deserve to have somebody whisper almost inaudibly as they traced across their skin?

Foggy thought so, and the fragile feeling started to dissipate as it went from slow kisses, one scar at a time, to Foggy climbing into Matt’s lap. Even that was much slower than usual, everything just felt…calm. No rush, no desperation.

Just two buds making out on the floor with half a bottle of whiskey left next to them. Casual. Same as every other time it had happened, except going on a lot longer and feeling a lot sweeter and Matt wrapping one arm around Foggy’s waist and touching his face gently while Foggy buried his hands in Matt’s hair and this whole thing was starting to feel like _something_ instead of just friends-with-benefits.

It was a little hard to be worried about that when Matt picked him up and pushed them both onto Foggy’s bed and all he had to think about was how Matt seemed to know exactly what buttons to push to drive him _crazy_ and he didn’t have to worry about if he was about to break rule fucking two of having a roommate.

Don’t develop feelings for the guy, Nelson. That’s even more idiotic than hooking up.

Except when Foggy gently touched Matt’s face when they were both fucked out and collapsed on top of each other, Matt huffed out what was almost definitely a laugh. He turned his head so Foggy was touching the edges of the scarring around his eyes.

"Mysterious radioactive chemicals," he whispered like he was telling a secret, and Foggy couldn’t help but start laughing, and he heard Matt laugh for the first time. Like, ever. In their months of rooming together, he’d never heard more than a chuckle, and Matt was laughing now. "Hopefully you’re smart enough to already know that one."

"One of the three things I know about you, yeah."

Foggy kissed Matt’s nose. It felt as natural as everything else had, but it was what crossed the line he hadn’t been able to find earlier. He knew it, because Matt froze completely. The smile stayed frozen on his face, but it wasn’t real. It wasn’t an actual smile, Foggy could feel the difference, and he knew he’d fucked up. Somehow.

Even if he wasn’t sure how, exactly.

"Uh…sorry, I-"

"For what?" Matt said blandly. He rolled off of Foggy and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He’d slipped completely back into his usual demeanor. No emotions showing through, a tight, fake smile aimed in Foggy’s general direction. "That was good."

"Yeah, no, I just-"

"I think I’m going to go to the gym."

"Oh. The…the gym?"

"It’s best to go at night. Nobody else there."

"Oh. Um. Okay."

"I’ll see you later."

Foggy barely resisted picking up the bottle of whiskey from the floor and taking a big enough drink to erase the last ten minutes of the night from his mind when the door clicked shut loudly behind Matt.


	2. Chapter 2

The weird end to a weird night didn’t actually make things weird.

The morning after, Foggy woke up to Matt already getting dressed for the day. His knuckles were swollen like he’d spent all night at a punching bag, which lined up with him going to the gym, and they’d slipped right back into their usual dynamic. Perfectly good roommates, tottering on the edge of friendship.

Foggy cracked jokes, Matt might come close to smiling at them, they went to class, Matt kicked ass in a debate and Foggy offered him a fist bump when he sat down, they got lunch at the dining hall and pointedly didn’t talk about it, just like they’d never talked about hooking up when it wasn’t happening before Foggy made it weird.

It maybe even felt like they were inching ever closer to being actual friends, instead of just this weird pretty-much-but-not-quite thing.

Foggy had never had such a strange relationship with anyone before. Not in any sense of the word. He had absolutely no idea where they stood, and Matt didn’t seem prepared to offer up any further details about what he felt. Clearly not anything romantic, considering the way he reacted to a simple kiss on the nose, but it would be nice to know if Matt considered Foggy a friend.

But still. Things weren’t any weirder now than they had been the day before, and therefore, things were fine. It was a developing situation that Foggy would keep an eye on, but if Matt wasn’t still upset or whatever he’d been feeling when Foggy kissed his nose, then hey. It was nothing to worry about.

Foggy was pretty good at going with the flow. At least, he was when he had midterms coming up and a very smart roommate to make study with him and that meant ignoring any residual awkwardness that Foggy was feeling and Matt apparently wasn’t to harass Matt into helping him decipher lecture notes Foggy didn’t even remember taking.

Matt was really good at hearing the random snippets Foggy wrote down and telling him exactly what they meant.

Foggy added that to the list of possible superpowers.

Matt gave him a rare half-smile when he said that, and it felt like more of a victory than it should have. They inched ever closer to crossing the line from close acquaintances to friends.

Once midterms were over, Matt again produced a large bottle of top-shelf rum and said something cheeky about how much they deserved it, and Foggy had pretty much never been so glad to get drunk.

Law school was stressful. Who knew, right?

When Matt got drunk, he relaxed. Kind of. Foggy had noticed, at some time between trying to figure out what was going on with him and ogling him in a lustful way, that Matt was literally constantly on edge. Like he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, ready to react to whatever came his way. When he had alcohol in him, the edges softened. It was weird because Foggy could tell he was still super alert. Way more aware of things around them than anybody who’d drunk as much rum as he had should be, way more aware of things than Foggy, who was only focusing on Matt and kept getting distracted by the way Matt’s mouth looked around the neck of the bottle when he took a swig. The way he could feel the heat coming off of Matt where their legs were stretched out next to each other.

But Matt kept tilting his head in different directions like he was hearing things Foggy couldn’t. When somebody walked past the door, Matt was half ready to jump up like he wanted to see who it was. And this was him _relaxed_. The thought made Foggy laugh, and Matt’s head tilted towards him instead of the door.

"What?"

"Nothing," Foggy said, some kind of fondness blooming in his chest at the way he was memorizing Matt’s weird tics. "Midterms over. Good rum. Life’s good."

"Life’s good?" Matt said it skeptically. Like he didn’t believe it for a second.

"Sure," Foggy said. "Life’s good. Good drink, good company…the world is…world is kind right now. Midterms over. Think I did good. Pretty sure you kicked my ass but you kick everyone’s ass because you’re like…weird super-genius smart. But I feel good. Life’s good."

"The world isn’t kind," Matt said slowly, tipping another gulp of rum into his mouth. "Not at all."

"Sure it is. Just 'cause it sucks sometimes doesn’t mean it isn’t kind."

"No. The world isn’t kind." That was Matt’s debate voice. He’d just made his main point and now he was going to argue it. Foggy was very familiar with that voice. "If the world was kind, I wouldn’t be here."

"What?"

"I…if the world was kind, I’d have a dad. How about that? You can’t say the world is kind when…when it took everything from me. And, and if the world was kind, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be able to see. You’d…I’ll ruin everything for you, you know."

"What?" Foggy went quickly from sad to confused at that one. "You’re…you’re, like, a pretty cool roommate."

"Doesn’t matter. You’ll be a great lawyer. You’ll have a good career, and I’ll ruin it. I know I will. If the world was kind, it would have kept me far away from you because I’ll ruin your life."

"Are you gonna sabotage me, Matt? 'Cause it’s starting to sound like you’re planning on sabotaging my career."

"Not on purpose," Matt said morosely. Foggy took the bottle from him before he could another drink and did it himself. "I know where my life is going and when people find out we know each other it’ll ruin it for you. Everything."

"I don’t think being friends with somebody who’s a better lawyer than me is gonna ruin my career, Matt. That’s just stupid. The world _is_ kind. The world gave us good rum. Hmm? How about that. Would an unkind world make us be able to get smashed after two and half weeks of intense stress? No. The world gave us good food. And I like you. I like having weird friends."

Matt shook his head.

"No. Somebody invented rum, and the world has nothing to do with being drunk. We do that for ourselves."

"Okay, but we’re part of the world." Suddenly, Foggy felt less drunk, and like he wanted to win this debate. Like he wanted to convince Matt that the world was made of kindness and just because bad things happen doesn’t mean it isn’t. "So if we’re kind, there’s kindness in the world."

"But the world, at its default, isn’t kind. To get anything good out of it, you have to do it yourself. If the world was a person, that person would be an asshole."

"I don’t think so. I don’t call every professor an asshole because I have to do work to get something out of their class."

"But if a professor never did anything nice, never made anything easier for you, you would. You do."

"Okay, so, bad example. But that’s not the same thing. A person decides to be cruel."

"Doesn’t matter if it’s a choice. It’s still cruelty to take a kid away from everything and make him be alone." Matt said it so simply and casually that it took a second for Foggy to realize he’d just learned more about Matt’s inner thoughts and feelings in one sentence than he had in six and a half months of living with him.

"Nobody should be alone," Foggy said softly, and Matt laughed. Bitterly. No smile attached to it.

"Tell that to the world that took it all away." He said angrily. "Tell that to kids who have nothing but what they worked for and have to do shitty things to get anything good back."

"But…is that the world being cruel or you…or a kid being surrounded by shitty people? 'Cause it isn’t like my life was handed to on a silver platter, Matt, I’ve had to work hard, too, but I’ve had good people. Kind people. There with me. And I see kindness in the world."

"Well, I don’t. I see a bunch of shitty people pretending to care to make it better for themselves, and a world that rewards it. If you don’t kick down, you don’t move up." Matt shrugged slightly uncomfortably like he’d just realized how much he was saying about himself. "If the world was kind, being nice would be rewarded."

"You don’t think it is?"

Matt took the bottle back from Foggy so easily that it almost seemed like he could see it.

"No. I don’t."

"Okay. Well. When Katie Elizabeth asked me for a pen two weeks ago, I said yes."

"And you never got your favorite pen back."

"And then when I was studying in the library she bought me coffee and a bagel because she felt bad for losing it."

"And because she wants in your pants. For her own benefit."

"If you’re nice a professor, they help you. If you aren’t, they don’t. Happens all the time."

"Doesn’t count. They’re paid to help you and don’t get in trouble for not."

"When I tell a joke and make somebody laugh, it makes me want to do it again. Doesn’t pay me money, doesn’t even make me new friends half the time, I just like making people laugh. Laughter is all I get out of it. Still like doing it."

"Yeah. Well. _You’re_ kind. Doesn’t mean the world is."

"How about when a baby smiles at me in the grocery store and it makes my day? What about when somebody you barely know remembers something nice about you? What about when you smell your favorite flower and it makes you smile? What about when you wake up in the morning and it’s the perfect temperature and the sun is out and you can feel it before you open your eyes? What about when somebody does something stupid and you can feel everyone in the room rolling their eyes at the same time?"

"None of those are kindness. Bad things can do nice things."

"Okay, if you can say that, I can say that nice things can do bad things. 'Course it isn’t fair that you had shitty things happen to you. Nobody said life’s fair, it’s just like…when bad things happen, it’s 'cause people can be so shitty. People can be _so_ shitty."

"Yeah. I know."

"But that doesn’t mean the _world_ is cruel. Just means that people can be."

"Why would a kind world let cruel people exist?"

"Why would a cruel world let kind people exist?"

"Because it’s even more cruel to force good people to go through bad things." Matt took another big drink and leaned his head back against his bed. His glasses were slipping down his nose. "There’s no…I’ve never seen the world be kind. I’ve seen a lot of things and not one of them was kind."

"I’m sorry, Matty," Foggy said sincerely. "I am. I don’t…don’t know your life. But someday you’ll get the kindness you haven’t yet, because the world is full of it."

"I won’t hold my breath." Matt tipped the bottle back and swallowed almost all that was left before passing it back to Foggy. He stretched like a cat, arched his back and held himself suspended over the floor, anchored by his heels and hands and his head against the bed frame. His shirt rode up and the edges of two scars showed.

Foggy wanted to kiss him and his scars until he saw the kindness in the world that Foggy knew was there.

He finished the bottle of rum instead.

Matt cocked his head toward the window, frowning, and then he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, looking like he decided to tune into Foggy.

"Show me the world being kind, Foggy Nelson, and I’ll show you the nightmare it really is."

And then he reached forward and tugged at Foggy’s hand like he was going to use it for leverage to stand up, and instead, he kissed Foggy’s knuckles. Like a goddamn regency romance lead.

And then he stood up, leaving Foggy on the floor probably looking like a dead fish, with the softest half-smile Foggy had ever seen on his face.

That expression on Matt’s face made Foggy’s stomach do a somersault he didn’t even want to start thinking about.


	3. Chapter 3

Foggy got to know Matt very, very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that he didn’t even realize how well he’d actually gotten to know Matt for a while because it felt like he hadn’t learned much at all. It felt like he knew approximately three things about Matthew Murdock, and one of them was the size of his dick.

He only realized that that wasn’t quite true anymore when Addie from Criminal Procedure asked if Matt was going to be at her party on Friday and Foggy already knew the answer was no because he could tell from the expression on Matt’s face at breakfast that fine Thursday morning that he was already planning on cramming all weekend for a test the next week. Not that anybody else would be able to tell Matt’s stressed face from his generally pissed-off face from his resting face, because they were all pretty much the same face, but Foggy could.

And then when Matt came into the room wearing his "I’m so fucking mad" face and dropped his bag on the floor instead of hanging it up and face planted into his bed, it made Foggy laugh instead of making him nervous because he’d learned somehow that that particular face wasn’t for when Matt was actually upset, it was for when something stupid happened that he’d tell Foggy about next time they got drunk.

"You all good, buddy?"

Foggy wasn’t exactly sure when they’d arrived firmly in the friendship camp, but sometime between going home for the summer and coming back for their second year, something had changed. Probably right around the same time Foggy started wishing there was a non-weird way to be like, "hey you know how we have sex pretty often? How would you feel about maybe like, going out on a date sometime?"

There wasn’t. There just wasn’t. At least not with Matt, who seemed to have the emotional vocabulary of somebody who had never had a friend in his life. Which, honestly, might not have been that far off. The more little one-sentence insights into Matt’s life he got, the more sure he was that Matt really had had as terrible of a time as his view on the world would suggest.

But even if Foggy couldn’t figure out a way to see if Matt was interested in dating, he seemed to have accepted that Foggy had decided they were friends. At least, he’d seemed confused when Foggy had asked if he was rooming with somebody else and it had seemed like he might have been at least a little relieved when Foggy had said good, he was glad to room with him again next year if he wanted.

"No," Matt said into his mattress, and Foggy barely stifled another laugh. If Matt was responding, it wasn’t serious at all. Which meant Foggy could abuse his new powers as Matt’s (best?) friend and tease him.

"No? What happened this time, Trev the evil RA tried to trip you down the stairs again?"

"I tripped him."

"Really?" Foggy asked, delighted. There was a reason they called him Trev the evil RA. "Today?"

"No. Last week. Ryan the RD refused to get mad at me because I said it was an accident even though Trev knew it wasn’t."

"Oh, that’s excellent. Down the stairs?"

"No. Just in the hallway." Matt rolled over onto his back, discarding his glasses on his nightstand. His lips twitched like he was about to smile. "He spilled his coffee all over the carpet. Ruined his brand new shoes."

"And I’m sure you were just so apologetic and helpful afterward."

"Pretty sure he would have punched me if it wouldn’t have gotten him fired."

"God, I’d pay money to watch you fistfight Evil Trev. You’d kick his ass."

Matt got that particular little smirk on his face that meant he was quietly agreeing with Foggy but not quite willing to say it out loud.

"So if that isn’t what’s bothering you tonight, what’s with the theatrics, Mr. Murdock?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Sure you don’t."

"I feel better already."

"Hmm. I don’t believe you."

"No?"

"You’re a terrible liar, actually. Like, awful."

"I am not."

"You are. Really, really bad." Foggy laughed again when Matt wrinkled his nose at the ceiling. "You don’t have to talk about it with me if you don’t want. Since you’re emotionally constipated. But I am gonna make you do something other than lie here and mope all night."

"What?"

"This is the year of Matthew Murdock learning social skills. I’ve decided. We’ll start small. Slutty brownies."

"I don’t know what that is and I don’t think I want to."

"Oh, trust me, buddy. Slutty brownies are not only food of the gods, they are also a surefire way to make friends in the dorms."

"I don’t need any more friends."

"Name one friend."

"Foggy Nelson." Matt turned his head towards Foggy without sitting up, half-smiling.

"My fault for setting the bar too low. Other than me, name one friend."

"I only need one friend. Fewer people to drag down to hell with me."

"Okay. Yeah. That’s enough of that for one night. Let’s go." Foggy got up off his own bed and tugged at Matt’s sleeve gently.

"What?"

"I told you. We’re making slutty brownies."

Matt let Foggy pull him out of bed, which was a win. The first time Foggy had tried that, Matt had rolled over and become, like, solid, immovable muscle. And growled. Not in a sexy way, in a "fuck around and find out" threatening kind of way. And it wasn’t even funny, which was saying something considering it was a real, actual growl.

He didn’t growl at Foggy anymore, though he did do that to pretty much anybody else who touched him, so really, the fact that Foggy could pull him out of bed was definitely a testament to their growing relationship.

"I don’t know what a slutty brownie is," Matt protested.

"You’re gonna find out!"

"I’m a terrible cook."

"I refuse to believe that until I see it, Mr. Good-At-Literally-Everything-Ever."

"I’m not-"

"You’re like, stupid smart, you’re hot, you’re absolutely ripped and I’m pretty sure secretly some kind of ninja, you’re a total asshole and somehow people still like you. Actually, there’s something you’re bad at, people skills."

The tips of Matt’s ears turned pink and Foggy smiled proudly.

"I’m not _secretly_ a ninja. Most people just aren’t paying enough attention."

A joke? Not a joke? Who knows. Matt let Foggy push him out the door towards the lounge and so he didn’t dwell on it.

It wasn’t worth trying to unravel the mystery of Matt Murdock himself. Everything he’d learned so far had been an accident, and that seemed to be working just fine. Matt picked up his glasses and slid them back on.

"Well, Ninja-man, time to change your life with the introduction of one of mankind’s finest sweet treats."

"I don’t trust when you start talking like this."

"Slutty brownies are the food of the gods, ambrosia and nectar unlike anything you’ve ever put in your mouth, the most scrumptious-"

"All right, all right, I’m already coming to make slutty brownies with you. You can let up on the spoken word poetry."

"Never. I’m a poet and I know it."

Matt snorted.

"I’ll take you to a speakeasy poetry club and let them eat you alive."

"You know where there’s a speakeasy poetry club?"

"I’ve heard one. Underground. Very low-key. I think they’d actually steal your skin if you tried to go."

"Because my skin is very comfortable. Moisturized."

"Mm." Matt took Foggy’s elbow and followed him to the lounge closest to them. "More like because those guys gatekeep bad poetry like they’ll die if somebody new comes uninvited."

"My poetry is not bad, Matthew, how dare you."

"Do you even actually write poetry, or do you just like to torture my sensitive ears every couple of days?"

"I positively live to figure out how far I can to annoy you before you throw me out the window."

"I’d use the door. Window is my territory."

"Right, because you crawl out of it and come back looking like you fought a raccoon and lost in the morning."

"I could beat a raccoon," Matt said conversationally, like he was interested in discussing what a grown man fist-fighting a raccoon would look like. "Easily."

"I’m sure you could. Hold this." Foggy put a bowl in Matt’s lap and started trying to open the bag of brownie mix without exploding it everywhere.

"Here. Use this."

Foggy looked up and Matt was offering a knife. A big knife. With a weird shaped handle wrapped in red rope. Definitely not a kitchen knife.

"Where did that come from?"

"I always have it on me."

"You…do?"

"Never know when you’re gonna need one." Matt shrugged and flipped the knife so he was offering the handle to Foggy in a fluid little move.

"One of these days I’m making you take me to whatever weird gym you use so you can show me all of your weird self-defense things." Foggy took the knife, though, and it did make opening the bag easier. Matt chuckled.

"I’ll take you to the gym sometime. It’s not all self-defense, though."

"No? Are you the aggressor, Mr. Murdock?"

"Sometimes. I did trip Evil Trev, if you’ll recall." Matt hopped up on the counter and leaned back against the wall, head tilted towards Foggy. He held up the bowl for Foggy to pour the brownie mix into.

"That’s true. Maybe we should start calling you Evil Matt."

"Please don’t. I am trying to have a career in law, you know."

"Evil Matt for the defense, your honor." Matt actually cracked a small smile at that one, which was pretty much the equivalent of him rolling on the floor laughing.

Not that he didn’t smile or laugh ever. In fact, he smiled and laughed all the time, it was just usually…mean? Creepy? Used as a tactic during a debate? All of the above. Very rarely genuine was the point, and Foggy could tell when he was actually smiling and this was a real one.

Win.

He was being the best roommate right now. Totally boyfriend material.

"If I crack an egg into this bowl will you stop making fun of me?"

"Probably not. It’s too much fun."

Matt picked up an egg from the counter anyway and cracked it one-handed.

"That is impressive, though. Too bad we only need one egg."

Foggy made Matt stir the brownie batter while he covered the bottom of the pan with cookie dough and added the Oreos on top.

"I’m no chef, Foggy, but this seems like a disgusting idea."

"I’m telling you, Matt, food of the _gods_. Swap."

The scent of slutty brownies was enough to attract more traffic than usual through the lounge at 2 pm. It was funny, though, because when Foggy was baking something by himself, people stopped and chatted and hoped to still be here when whatever it was came out of the oven.

With Matt sitting sentry at the counter, they didn’t. It was really funny, actually, because their dorm mates kept coming through one set of doors, looking hopeful, seeing Foggy, looking even more hopeful, and then seeing Matt, who was making no effort to look friendly, and continuing right on through to the other set of doors and out of the room.

"Nobody else wants slutty brownies either, see," Matt said lightly when the fifth person walked through without stopping.

"No, nobody else wants to stand here and get ripped apart by the best debater in our class, which is the only experience most of them have with you because you make no effort to have a social life."

"I have been to parties."

"Six in total, and all of them consisted of you following me around without talking until we left. Not an impressive resume, frankly."

"Who needs more than one friend?"

"Most people, buddy. Most people."

"I’m not most people. Never have been."

"No, you’re a weird ninja man with possible superpowers and no social skills whatsoever unless you count being an asshole to people in a tone that makes it seem like you might be joking except you’re totally not."

"It’s not superpowers, you know."

"I don’t know what you’d call all your isms, but superpowers are a better explanation than most of the other options I’ve gone through."

"My isms?"

"You know. Matt-isms. Like bad jokes about being a lapsed Catholic disguised as comments on society as a whole, saying bless you before somebody sneezes, getting the door before somebody knocks."

"Pretty sure only two of those could even loosely be counted as superpowers, actually. And even that’s iffy."

"Knowing when the good taco truck is nearby when I can’t see, hear, or smell it."

"I have good senses. Happens when you’re blind."

"Really?"

"No. Happens when you go blind because of mysterious radioactive chemicals, though." Matt shrugged. "Brownies are done."

"There’s still three minutes on the timer, can we go back to what you just said?"

"This oven burns hot. They’re done. I can smell."

They were, which made Foggy think Matt wasn’t joking at all, which made him think back to every single joke he’d made about Matt’s alleged superpowers since they’d met.

"Eat one of these while I think of something clever to say."

"You mean you don’t have a comeback ready already? Shame. You’re usually so good at that."

"I have never been hit with something like this out of nowhere before. Sorry? You have mutant powers?"

"Sort of?" Matt sniffed the pile of too-hot-to-be-cut slutty brownie crumbs suspiciously. "I still think this seems gross."

"Fuck you, take a bite. What do you mean sort of?"

"It…" Matt trailed off and took a bite, and it was definitely to avoid having to answer. "Shit," he mumbled around a full mouth. "Okay. Yeah."

"I told you so," Foggy crowed triumphantly. "I told you so. And I will rub it in your face forever that I told you so."

"I don’t even like box brownies."

"Food of the _gods_ , Matty, I told you."

"Yeah. Okay. They’re pretty good."

"Pretty good, he says, looking like I just sucked his dick."

"I do not!"

"You totally do. I would know. I’ve seen that face."

Matt rolled his eyes. Foggy couldn’t even see his eyes behind the glasses, and he knew Matt rolled his eyes.

"I didn’t know you had my expressions memorized."

"Dude, we’ve hooked up more times than I’ve heard you laugh. I know what your O face looks like."

"Fair enough." Matt shrugged with one shoulder and put more slutty brownie in his mouth.

"Now, back to you having actual superpowers? Because I was totally joking at least ninety percent of the time I said that."

"Oh. I thought you just figured it out, honestly." Matt shrugged again. Completely casual. Nothing weird about this conversation at all. "You’ve been joking about it for so long and I never really tried to hide it."

"How does it…work?"

"I could show you," Matt smirked. "You said you wanted to come to the gym sometime."

"What’re you gonna do, beat me up to prove you can?"

"I would never hurt you," Matt said, suddenly so sincere that it almost took Foggy’s breath away. "However," he continued, light and teasing again. "I do like showing off and fueling my massive ego."

Foggy laughed. Matt didn’t blatantly joke very often, even though he’d loosened up a lot around Foggy he was still usually pretty subtle and dry, but he was getting pretty good at it.

"In that case, lead the way, Mr. Murdock. Maybe we should wait until after we eat this entire pan of slutty brownies, though."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what can i say. slutty brownies changed my life and now they can change this little bastard's, too.


	4. Chapter 4

When Matt said he was going to the gym, Foggy had always assumed he meant the one on campus. The one that Foggy had gone to himself a couple of times when he was really, really procrastinating and going for a walk on a treadmill or lifting weights for a little while felt a lot more productive than just like, sitting in the dorm doing nothing.

When Matt led the way off campus, Foggy assumed they were headed for some fancy private gym that lined up with his expensive taste in sheets and brand-name clothing. Someplace open twenty-four hours that would smell like lemongrass and be full of fancy workout machines that looked like alien tech.

He didn’t expect to get swiped into the subway, sit quietly next to Matt in an almost empty car, get off the Subway barely four blocks from his family’s apartment, and then be pretty sure he was watching Matt break into what looked like it might be an abandoned gym.

He definitely didn’t have a key, anyway. He fiddled with the doorknob for a couple of seconds and then held the door open for Foggy.

"Alarm code is 1964," he said quietly, and Foggy typed it in, hoping to God that Matt knowing the code meant they were allowed to be here and Matt just forgot his key or something. "The janitor lets me when I get here early enough."

"You always come all this way?"

Matt shrugged, walking through the dark building like it was just as familiar to him as their tiny little dorm room, which made sense if he _did_ in fact come all this way every time, because he went to the gym a lot. Foggy, however, could not navigate in the dark in an unfamiliar space, and he had no idea where the light-switches were.

"It’s a good gym. I grew up here."

"Really?" Foggy hummed in triumph and flicked a switch, sending the hum of fluorescent lights through the room and lighting up a boxing ring in the center. Lockers and punching bags against the walls, benches. Typical boxing gym stuff, if Foggy had to guess based on his incredibly limited experience of boxing gyms.

"Well. Until I moved to Japan, anyway." Matt dropped his bag on a bench and pulled off his sweatshirt.

Tank tops were a good look on him. Tank tops and sweats, most people’s laziest pajama-type outfit. A very good look on Matt Murdock.

Foggy stopped watching Matt to look at the faded posters on the walls. There were a lot of them, advertising boxing matches from years ago. It looked like the oldest ones were closer to the lockers, like whoever was running the place didn’t want to get rid of anything so they just kept adding to the line of posters over time.

Foggy had never really had a boxing phase. His brother had, at one point, but not local boxing. Real boxing. More the type of boxing and wrestling that got people weirdly flexible action figures that made good projectiles for launching down the stairs at your siblings’ faces. So, while he was absently listening to Matt stretch and warm-up behind him, Foggy didn’t expect to recognize any names. Why would he know some random old Hell’s Kitchen local boxers, even if he grew up here?

So seeing a big poster, one of the biggest on the wall, in fact, proclaim "Fight of the year! Carl Crusher Creel vs Battlin’ Jack Murdock!" It took him by surprise.

"Is Battlin’ Jack Murdock your dad?" He asked without thinking.

Matt went still.

"Why do you ask?"

"There’s a big poster on the wall."

"There is?"

"Uh-huh."

Matt came over to Foggy’s side.

"Where?"

"Right here." Foggy reached out and touched his finger to the poster, and Matt put his whole hand on it. "Carl Crusher Creel versus Battlin’ Jack Murdock."

"Creel?" Matt’s face twisted like he was tasting something horribly sour. "I didn’t think they’d still have anything here from that."

"Was it 'the fight of the year?' Do you remember it?"

"It was the fight that got my dad killed. So. Yeah. I remember it."

Foggy’s brain screeched to a little bit of a halt at that. He knew Matt had lost his dad. He didn’t know how, and he could already tell that asking Matt if he remembered was going right on the list of things to keep him up at night wishing he’d never said.

"I’m…um. I’m sorry, Matt. I didn’t mean-"

"It’s fine. It was a long time ago." Matt dropped his hand off the poster and shook himself like he was trying to get rid of whatever thoughts he was thinking. "Do you want to work out with me or not?"

"I was under the impression I was just here to watch. You’re gonna make me do something?"

"I’ll teach you some self-defense. Never know when you’re gonna need it." Matt slid back into cocky confidence, the same attitude he had in class and debates, so easily that it was obviously fake. A very good fake, but Foggy was pretty sure he knew Matt well enough now to see the little tremor in his hands, how his breathing was a little less even than usual. He’d been rattled.

"I don’t know about you, Matt, but I don’t go around getting myself into situations I would need to fight my way out of."

"Never know when you’re gonna need it," Matt repeated. "And you don’t know my life."

"Fair enough, as much as it pains me to admit about somebody I live with."

Matt laughed, only half-fake, and hopped up into the boxing ring effortlessly.

He’d always moved gracefully. Even when he was just walking to the front of a classroom, he moved like he knew every single muscle in his body perfectly and was in complete control of all of them. He moved with as much confidence as he usually projected, and the way he flipped himself over the ropes and landed on the balls of his feet showed off that almost unnatural control he had over himself.

It was also hot. Can’t forget that one.

"Are you coming up here or not?" He tilted his head and smiled the creepy little predatory smile that Foggy usually only ever saw when he was about to rip somebody to shreds in a mock trial.

He wasn’t standing there with his fists up, but Foggy could tell he was ready for a fight.

Which was. Something.

Foggy had no type of martial arts experience. At all. When his sister had taken karate lessons for three years, Foggy had come to the six hour long tournaments one Saturday a month and been incredibly bored during every fight that wasn’t between people with actually developed skills, and that was the extent of his exposure unless occasionally seeing televised fights flick past while he scrolled through TV shows also counted. But even with his limited experience, he could see that Matt was decidedly not somebody he would have been bored watching at age nine.

Which was rather worrying, since he seemed to be challenging Foggy, and also just a bit confusing. It had been almost a week since Matt has casually revealed that he actually did have superpowers, and Foggy was still trying to figure out exactly how they worked. That was, ostensibly, the reason Matt had brought him here tonight, and Foggy had assumed that would mean Matt would show off some tricks and Foggy would applaud and find some way to move on like finding out his friend had powers didn’t change the way his world worked.

Instead, he was going to get into a fistfight?

Apparently so, since he took Matt’s invitation to climb up into the ring.

"Try and hit me," Matt said with something close to childlike glee. His glasses had been left behind with his sweatshirt and his eyes were sparkling like he was about to start laughing.

"What?"

"Try and hit me. You can’t. You’ll see how I use my senses."

Foggy took a half-hearted swing, and Matt batted his arm away effortlessly.

"Try for real, c’mon Foggy. You can’t hit me. You won’t be able to touch me."

His confidence was almost infuriating. He tilted his head, his cocky little smile getting bigger, and he crossed his arms over his chest like he didn’t think Foggy would actually try to hit him.

So he did. He planted his feet and threw an actual punch, drawing from every scene in every movie he’d ever seen, and even though he’d seen the way Matt could tell what was coming, he still felt like he was about to become the biggest asshole on the planet for punching a blind guy in the face. Even if said blind guy was literally asking for it. In words.

Matt swayed to the side and avoided Foggy’s fist easily, and laughed when it made Foggy stumble forward.

"I told you, you won’t be able to hit me."

If this were a movie, Foggy would wipe that smug grin off his face with a solid slap to the face, and would ultimately triumph in a fight that would prove he was, in fact, a naturally gifted fighter.

To his credit, he did try. It was probably the most high-exertion workout he’d ever had, actually, because it was kind of fun and Matt was actually laughing in a way that was contagious, and Foggy could not land a hit. Not even a tiny one, not even a kick to the shins, Matt just kept moving away like he could predict every move Foggy was making. He kept throwing out little pointers.

"Keep your balance on the balls of your feet. Throw your shoulder into it. Don’t aim for the head unless you know you’re good enough to hit it, and you’re not."

At first, he just dodged and weaved. Always just a step ahead of Foggy so he missed by a couple of inches. Foggy was out of breath, half from laughing and half from actually trying to punch his friend, and Matt leaned back against the ropes. Lounged, more like, barely having broken a sweat, grinning in Foggy’s direction with his eyes drifting slightly off to the side.

"Do you get it now?"

"I certainly get something. Not sure I understand exactly how it works, but holy fuck, Matt."

"It’s all of my senses," Matt straightened up and moved close to Foggy. He covered Foggy’s eyes with his hands. "What do you hear?"

"Uh…you?"

"What else? Everything you can hear."

"Um…cars outside. The lightbulbs, if I concentrate. The pipes once in a while."

"I hear that. And people talking. Music playing. Your lungs and heartbeat. The subway just went by underneath us. Four bars nearby, all the people and glasses and music from them. Mice and rats in the walls, a couple of cats outside. Thirteen different dogs barking, doors closing, footsteps. The air in the ventilation shafts. The boiler downstairs. Somebody just flicked a lighter across the street, and I can smell the fresh cigarette smoke." Matt took a deep breath. "I can smell the car exhaust, always. Spilled beers, piss and vomit in the alleys, your shampoo and cologne, and that lotion you use sometimes. All the gym smells, stale sweat and old blood and cleaning supplies and deodorant. I can taste most of the things I can smell, and all of the food and drinks people have made and eaten nearby. I can feel the air, the way it moves, and outlines all of the things in the room. The whole back corner in between the locker banks is full of punch dummies, and one of them fell over since the last time I was here. I can feel your breath, the way your eyes are moving under my hands, when you breathe. And those are just the simple things." He let his hands drop away from Foggy’s eyes and stepped back.

"Those are _just_ the simple things? What counts as a not simple thing?"

"I could tell you what brand of cigarette the guy across the street is smoking. Exactly what scents have been used in the room for the last…I’d say about a week, after that everything mixes too much to tell."

Foggy shook his head.

"That’s insane, Matt."

"That’s what I get for getting chemicals splashed in my face."

"And the fighting? That’s some mutant powers, too?"

"No," Matt laughed. "That’s training. My senses help."

Foggy kicked out trying to hit Matt one more time, and Matt caught Foggy’s foot with his own, and in one bewildering move managed to hook Foggy’s ankle and spin him around, almost knocking him to the ground before pulling him back to balance.

"Damn. I was hoping that would work." 

"Never."

"What else do you do?"

"What?"

"You told me it isn’t just defense. What else do you do?"

"Offense." Matt grinned, sharp and predatory.

"Show me."

Was it weird that this side of Matt was very definitely turning Foggy on? Probably, but Matt let out a little laugh and tilted his head like he knew exactly what Foggy was thinking and thought it was hilarious.

"I can’t just fight you, Foggy."

"Why not?"

"Because I’ve been training for fourteen years and am at a skill level far beyond any defense you could throw up."

Some quick math made that a rather concerning statement. Maybe not just the "training for fourteen years" thing, because plenty of kids did martial arts, but the way Matt said "training" made it sound like it was a lot more serious than once-a-month karate competitions. Or even once a week karate competitions. Matt said "training" the same way he said "studying" when he meant staying up for seventy-two hours straight reading three books at once and listening to lectures as he went. Way too intense for somebody who was just like, into martial arts as a normal passion.

Not that Matt did anything _normally_ , it was just a vibe Foggy was getting from this whole thing.

"So show me on a punching bag, then. If you’re too scared to fight me."

"I’m definitely not scared of you." Matt flipped himself over the ropes and landed lightly on the floor, tilting his head up to Foggy with a smile that almost hid the edge underneath. "What do you want to see?"

"Your worst," Foggy said, feeling a bit like a comic book villain. A poorly written comic book villain about to get his ass kicked, especially with the way Matt grinned at that. Or maybe a really poorly written comic book hero about to get his ass kicked by the villain, since Matt looked a little too gleeful to be showing off some pretty intense skills to be a hero.

"That was a really stupid line."

"You know, it felt stupid while I was saying it, but it’s too late to take it back. Show me your worst, Murdock."

Matt laughed.

"My worst hand-to-hand."

"There’s an option B?"

He shrugged.

"I’m a man of many talents."

"Clearly. Go punch something. You can show me how well you use a gun later."

"I don’t use _guns_ , that would be too much. A blind man with a gun? Please."

"You can taste a cigarette brand from across a busy street but you draw the line at shooting a gun."

"I _could_ shoot a gun. I don’t _want_ to shoot a gun. Blades are more my style. And nobody looks twice at a blind man carrying a knife because, in theory, I could stab somebody without using heightened senses. And knives can be used for other things. Guns are very much a sighted person’s weapon."

"I’m starting to think my best friend is a supervillain."

"Supervillain-in-training, maybe." That same sharp, mean smile made a comeback. "What’s wrong with that?"

"Oh, just show off already. I can tell you want to." Foggy said and dangled his legs over the side of the ring, leaning forward against the lowest rope. "We can debate your ethics later."

"I’ll win."

"I’m sure you’ll try."

Matt shook his head like he was offended by the implication that he wouldn’t win a debate as he crossed to the corner where all the punch dummies were stacked. He pulled one out to the middle of the open space next to the ring and stood back from it. His head was tilted towards Foggy, his breathing even and smooth, and he looked like he was concentrating on something.

"You know, it’s hard to show off against a dummy."

"You’re the one who said I couldn’t fight."

"It’s hard to show off against somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing, too."

With that, Matt threw himself into motion.

And like, Foggy had a pretty good idea of how flexible Matt was, and he knew how he moved, and he’d gotten a pretty good idea of how aware of everything around him he was just a few minutes ago, but seeing him on the offense, even against a dummy, was an entirely new animal. His entire body moving smoothly, his leg coming up to kick the dummy’s head with no visible effort, and Foggy’s jaw literally dropped watching him keep going. It was almost inhuman, the way he moved. Fast and fluid, never pausing, and barely seeming to have to try, the sound of his fists and feet and occasionally elbows thudding into the soft plastic and the dummy bouncing back to upright after every hit landed. Foggy was pretty sure this fight would have been over in less than a minute if the opponent wasn’t a dummy that couldn’t actually lose. The thing was jerking back and forth so dramatically that Foggy almost thought it was about to break. And he didn’t know all that much about fighting or human anatomy or how well either of those things was actually reflected against a plastic punch dummy, but it looked like if that dummy were a flesh-and-blood person it would hurt pretty goddamn bad to be treated the way Matt was currently treating the dummy.

He moved through what looked like choreographed combinations, taking brief pauses to let the dummy settle back completely upright again before starting his next attack, and Foggy thought back to the night when he’d traced Matt’s scars.

_"You should see the other guy."_

Jesus Christ. If Matt was like _this_ and the other guy had managed to get him looking like _that_ , Foggy was pretty sure he didn’t want to see the other guy. In fact, he was pretty sure the other guy probably looked like roadkill.

After a few minutes of non-stop movement, Matt stepped back and turned to Foggy, giving a slight bow and a cocky smile.

"I told you it’s not all self-defense."

"You’re a machine of destruction, Matthew Murdock."

"Not a machine, just well-trained."

"Did you like, go to ninja school before law school? Your prelaw degree is in beating people up? You’re a secret agent who disappeared under mysterious circumstances to get really good at hand-to-hand combat?"

Matt laughed.

"Sort of, no, I was a Psych major, and sort of. And it’s not just hand-to-hand. I told you."

"Right, blades. Meaning swords?"

Matt moved and suddenly there was a knife in his hand, the same one he’d offered Foggy to cut open the bag of brownie mix. He grinned at Foggy.

"I’m good with a sword. Knives are easier to hide."

"Jesus Christ, where was that?"

"I told you, I always have it on me."

"So you’re an advocate for bringing a knife to a gunfight, then?"

"Sure. If you know how to use one." He tilted his head like he was listening to something, and then threw the knife. He moved so quickly Foggy didn’t even realize he’d thrown it until he heard it sink into the head of another punch dummy. Perfectly in its fake little eye socket, the blade embedded down to the handle. A perfect hit. "Knives can be a lot more dangerous than a gun."

"Holy shit," Foggy breathed, slipping out from under the rope he had been leaning against and going over to touch where the knife was stuck in the dummy’s head. "That’s…how did you aim like that?"

"Air currents in the room paint a pretty clear picture." Matt shrugged like it was no big deal and yanked the knife out, sliding it back into what Foggy hoped was a hidden sheath under his waistband and not just like, his boxers. "And practice makes perfect."

"How many times have you thrown a knife into the skull of a man for it to be that perfect?"

"It’s not like I practice by throwing knives into actual people’s heads. I practice aiming at lots of things."

"You are so goddamn weird, Matt. And mysterious."

"You like it."

He said that like it wasn’t a question, like he was just that confident and sure of himself that he knew without a doubt that Foggy was into whatever weird vibes he had going on. But Foggy was pretty good at reading Matt’s body language, however subtle it was, and he tilted his head just slightly like he did when he was waiting for the answer to a question. Like he was trying to feel out if Foggy actually did like him or not.

He was pretty good at hiding his emotions until he wasn’t. And he was pretty good at acting like things didn’t phase him at all, but Foggy was pretty sure that if he didn’t reassure him exactly right right now, a door that had just barely cracked open between them would slam back shut and lock tight.

"God help me, I do," Foggy said lightly. "Tall? Handsome? Don’t think I can say dark because you’re _such_ a redhead, but you’re certainly mysterious. Funny? You check a lot of boxes, Murdock. And is it weird that I’m totally turned on by the fact that you’re high-key some kind of weird ninja?"

"Probably," Matt said quietly. "Doesn’t bother me."

"No? That’s good, because I’m like, ten seconds away from jumping your bones here."

Matt laughed, also quiet, and Foggy took that as permission to gently bump their shoulders together.

"You’re a very impressive dude, Murdock."

"I know."

"I know you do. Want to go home and have sex?"

"I mean. I wouldn’t be complaining."

Foggy laughed and watched Matt pull his sweatshirt on and grab his bag, flicking the lights off and locking the door behind them as they left.

**Author's Note:**

> ladies, gentlemen, cool people like me who refuse to let the gender binary tell them what to do, thank you SO much for reading!! I am SO excited to finally post this fic, I'm in love with this au and there are so many fun stories to tell and this is the starting point! If you follow me on [Tumblr](https://matt-murdok.tumblr.com/) you've probably seen me shitposting abt this au for like. weeks on end now lmao bc this Matt is just so much fun. you get the spice and creepy vibes of Murderdock paired with some very soft mattfoggy and (eventually, not in this fic but in this universe) very fun dynamics with Spider-Gwen and pals, and I just am having so much fun with it ajhgsjhgfjhs
> 
> This fic is entirely written! There are eight chapters and I'll probably be posting every other day if I can restrain myself and not post every day so if you want to wait until it's complete to pop back and read it all at once, please do! Comments are Much appreciated especially because this AU is like. its my baby. i need everyone to love rumspringa matt as much as i love rumspringa matt he's a perfect bastard lmao
> 
> anyway I'm Asper i haven't stopped thinking about Matthew Michael Murdock in months and i stole this title from Unholy by Negative 25 because I really couldn't think of one lmaoooo
> 
> <3 thanks so much for reading!!


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